A Theban tomb of the late Third Intermediate Period on El-Khokha
A Theban tomb of the late Third Intermediate Period on El-Khokha

Summary/Abstract: The profound social changes occuring under the late Ramessides and the early years of the Libyan rule have not remained without an effect on Egyptian material culture. One of the best indicators of this phenomenon is funerary art and, more specifically, the funerary artefacts retrieved from the tombs of the Theban necropolis. Although the material from regional cemeteries in Middle Egypt, the Delta and especially the royal necropolis at Tanis also provides valuable data to a better understanding of the characteristics of this change, it is only at Thebes that a vast sequence of tomb groups preserved by favorable climatic conditions can serve as a basis for more elaborate studies yielding a compass for the assessment of contemporary corpora throughout Egypt. The significance of the Theban material was already recognised by early scholars following the discovery of tomb groups in Deir el-Bahari, the Ramesseum and other sites at Thebes. More recent investigations have also convincingly shown that the period between the 11th and mid-7th c. BC is far from being homogeneous with regard to cultural patterns and paradigms expressed in material culture. Relying on typological studies of various genres of this material,2 the production of the 21st and early 22nd dynasties is now safely distinguishable from the preceding and successive Theban corpora. The present study offers a summary of the digging activities carried out in a mortuary complex that dates to the second part of the Third Intermediate Period, i.e., the late 22nd and 25th dynasties.

• Details
• Contents